


there's nothing fair (about being your sister)

by B0nk3rs



Series: Bored of Being Nameless [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Unhealthy Relationships, thats how they grew up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 12:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B0nk3rs/pseuds/B0nk3rs
Summary: In which there are two Hargreeves sisters and Vanya is always the second favourite.All Attention is Good Attention.





	there's nothing fair (about being your sister)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Doll's House](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121058) by [Katydid_99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99). 



Three Facts 

  * 1 and 3 are close, 4 is different, 5 can do hair, 6 can clean blood stains, 3 is a threat, 1 is the Golden Child, 2 is angry, 7 is ordinary, 567, 246, 123.
  * Reginald disapproves of feminine things as much as he disapproves of holidays and leisure. Mom chose to be Mom because it was within an expected pattern of behaviour.
  * All attention is ~~good~~ attention.



* * *

  * Louise is strong and blond and beautiful. Any attention is good attention and so she grows to love being the centre of it. She has to.



From the second Diego knew the difference between them he's been her least favourite brother. Even Five had winced at the snap of his leg after she'd take things into her own hands, Dad had been impressed with her form. He'd taken the innocence of childhood (what was left of it) and made sure she understood there was no androgeny in it. Her skirts were Wrong, her breasts were Wrong and she was Wrong for being stronger and taller than him. To prove a point she'd kept her hair long enough to smack him when she turned her head. She cut it when she came back to Earth.

Addison had smiled and said something that cut her like Diego never could- he didn't mean it (did he?)- but she'd seen the way Ben and Klaus stayed just out of reach afterwards. He drifted away until they were opposite sides of the country, they weren't even on the same planet nowadays. She wasn't the princess in his fairytale ending. ~~Instead, she was a monster with long arms and hair everywhere.~~

Klaus wanted to try on her skirts which they both knew was Wrong but it wasn't so bad when she got to wear shorts in exchange. She wasn't so sure about makeup but Klaus and Addison and Diego and Mom said girls loved makeup so she let Mom put it on her and then put it on Klaus whenever she wanted to "practice". Dad didn't approve of makeup. (Dad said makeup was as frivolous as the women who wore it. He sure to get rid of any fan gifts containing makeup as Number One was not a frivolous girl.)

Five was a fairly decent hairdresser considering how short his was, she could do her own _obviously_ but more than once he'd pulled her long braid into a neat crown or made it a neat braid after it got pulled out or cut it neatly with one of Diego's knives rather than let her go out with it uneven. Addison had never touched her hair after they started public missions.

Ben was her second favourite sibling. Ben's hands were soft. Ben helped her wash the blood out of her sheets and skirts and shirts in the dead of night. She missed Ben.

Vanya was a threat to her position as favourite child. Favourite daughter. She knew that if she wasn't the favourite daughter she was the least favourite child. She knew she loved her sister. It was hard to remember looking at the delicate doll apologising for slitting Addison's throat that she could love such a creature and so, her love came in the creak but not crack of bone. In the gentleness of her hold. When Vanya collapsed in her arms, Louise felt bitter all over again at her sister's delicate femininity. She loved her sister but Vanya was a threat to her brothers and Louise had always put them first.

*

  * Dulce is sharp and sexy sweet. Any attention is good attention and so she grows to love being the centre of it. She has to.



Klaus is more into makeup and boys than she is which is weird because Klaus is Not A Girl but useful because he does excellent makeovers. He steals her skirts and she borrows his shorts, she's more useful than he is anyway. She grows her hair until she can wear it like Mom and then longer to prove she can fight blindfolded. She's still more useful than Klaus. ~~She's still not good enough.~~

Ben is good at getting blood out of clothes and rubbish at comforting. They share a score for most stains and the Mission uniform is a relief. He can sew though which is the most useful any of her brothers has ever been. He's a great shoulder to cry on - not that she needs to cry or anything, mainly she just knows when to fetch Klaus to him. She never understood Ben. 

Luther is too busy loving Dad to see what's right in front of his eyes. Nobody wants a boy who spends more time building planes than thinking about them and nobody wants one who thinks more about what their Dad will say. (What about Mom? She's the one actually raising you Luther. Mom's the one who gives a shit. Dad doesn't know how to plait hair or curl it or wax or makeup. What the fuck had Dad done for you lately-) She smiles at his side in pictures and hides her grief when he looks to Addison for company. She doesn't need Luther. 

Addison is the worst. Least favourite sibling, how fucking dare he. Addison doesn't know how to wipe his ass without his power. Dulce is the dangerous one, Dulce could castrate him before he thought about doing that shit again. This is different from being unable to trust Klaus because Klaus can't steal her free will whenever the fuck he wants. He's still her brother despite everything, she goes to the wedding with a drunk Klaus and a rented suit. The best man is no one she recognises and his speech says he knows nothing about Addison. Claire is all over the papers when she's born.

Five is an insufferable prick with the ability to plait a fishtail in two minutes walking. Five doesn't care that her uniform includes a skirt because she's still the angriest person he's ever met and carries so many knives what the fuck Dulce? Looking at him in that oversized suit almost ignites some latent maternal instinct, at least until he opens his mouth.

She spends time with Vanya and Five talking maths and working out a combined move that never gets used. Vanya is her sister. She teaches her where to hit creeps before she leaves. Vanya is a stone-cold bitch who doesn't deserve her support. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE.

*

    * Addison has to be the perfect son. (His skin's too dark, he's always too aggressive.) Addison learns to smile and take without asking because the answer will always be no. He becomes the threat his sister's stay wary of (but it's not like he made her- he'd never do That. That's fucked up, _fuck you,_ **how _dare_ you suggest That**). (Addison hadn't but what if-) Claire is the greatest gift he's ever received. He's such an idiot.



Addison is the greatest gift his father has ever received and if he lies enough then he might make it come true. Addison wants more and that's not greedy or selfish that's due to sharing the spotlight his whole life and knowing there is never enough space. Addison wasn't raised as a Good person but he's never been Bad, just Ignorant. 

The Judge decides that's Worse and gives him one chance to see Claire again.

*

  * Karyn is loud and funny and ditzy. Any attention is good attention and so she grows to love being the centre of it. She has to.



Addison used to help her with makeup but nowadays he's worse than Diego with the macho shit. They share smokes and sometimes he lets her borrow his shorts and shirts. Five didn't care and Luther doesn't know and Ben got so uncomfortable when she talked about "girly shit", but Addison says he needs to know what women think. (They both know he doesn't need to know what women think to get what he wants.) 

Five cut all her hair off like she asked when they were ten. Sometimes she wishes he'd been less sensible and just buzzed it all, Diego had given her his pomade and spiked his hair. Five was banned from anything with a blade and defiantly ate with a spork for two weeks. She doesn't know where he got the spork but three months later he had the scissors to cut her hair again. 

Luther had informed her that Some People thought she was a dyke and they might not like her because if it. It was the last hug she remembered getting from him before she left, her bear of a brother trying to reassure her that it didn't matter what Other People thought about her. Ben had sat next to him and loudly wondered when Luther learned what a dyke was.

Diego spat it at her when he got particularly frustrated about picking her off the city streets. It's like he forgets she didn't care about his opinions anymore, prick. Nowadays she's thin enough to pass with short hair and thin enough for concern when it gets long. Heroin wasn't so bad on an empty stomach. She knows Diego knows what she's been up to, she wishes he cared a little less

Ben was someone she tried to avoid in life. Only one sister was allowed to talk to him apparently and it wasn't her. He used to mutter that being a ditz was a good way to get hurt and she used to step on his feet. In death, she couldn't escape his self-righteous bullshit for longer than a few hours. He watched her drinks though. And reminded her how to get blood out of clothes or how to escape when she needed to. She didn't ask him why he's never taken his own advice.

Vanya was someone Karyn had wanted to be at one point. The perfect daughter, demure and obedient and silent and pretty, a delicate useless China doll that played music and didn't get high or emotional. They served the same purpose, stand in this photo and look pretty. Except Vanya wasn't in any photos and thank God for that. It was hard being the family disappointment but someone had to do it. Vanya never got locked away for not being good enough.

*

  * Five is cold and bold and a bitch. Any attention is good attention and so she grows to love being the centre of it. She has to.



Vanya was the only person in the house with a brain unsullied by testosterone and it shows. Five's position is guaranteed but that doesn't mean she doesn't show up her idiot brothers simply by existing. If Vanya tried it they'd mutiny but they all know how little Five cares about fighting nicely. The Worst thing Five has ever done to Vanya was Leave. 

Ben was tolerable and she misses him most washing blood off her hands. He didn't mind sitting with her and Vanya even though that sometimes meant with Klaus too. She didn't understand his need to read fiction or why he liked watching her do her hair and resolves to get Klaus to ask him for her. After the Apocalypse was stopped.

Klaus used to steal skirts which was _stupid_ cause skirts were shit to do anything in but sit. She'd made a deal and washed her own shorts in the laundry in exchange for a few. He's tried to do her makeup but it was such a waste of time that she made Vanya be his model from then on. The only thing she needs to put on is concealer. Mom was the best with concealer.

Addison used to take credit for the things she did. He wasn't fast enough to avoid her fist in his stomach and went to interview with a livid bruise for his cheek. He was planning to leave just like her. He didn't spend as much time with Luther as he used to before they went public so he spent more time with her in public and told an interviewer that her actual name was Vanya. (He'd 'implied' it by talking about sharing the bathroom with all of "Vanya's hair products, girls use so much stuff!") She'd ignored him until it almost got her shot because he'd never apologised properly.

Diego was almost as useful as Addison, if not for the way he tried to insist she should hang back like she was as delicate a piece of robotics as Mom was. Sometimes he was normal and others he'd see the skirt and forget she got more hands-on than Addison and Klaus put together. It was probably Dad's fault, most things about Diego were. 

Luther was good for a piggyback and not much else and that's what she liked about him. She was going places and he was going nowhere but he liked to act as though Dad would let him off his leash if he was good enough. No one was ever good enough and Dad never did in the end.

* 

  * Beth was small and cute and shy. Any attention is good attention and so she grows to love being the centre of it. She has to.



Five explains it to her one day, Vanya is practising and their father is watching them while she plays. Beth's the scariest so he needs to keep his eye on the threat least she turn around and eat. He then has to reassure her that he doesn't think the Horror eats people and then spar with her because he thinks she needs reassurance that he's not scared of her. (He was. She doesn't mind.) Without him, Vanya and her cling closer together to cover the gap. Her own death is something she can't forgive herself for knowing that Vanya is without Five as well. Him with his impeccable timing but he never shows up until it's too late.

Vanya is quiet with her but sometimes Beth wishes she could have Five's unfiltered attention to herself, sometimes, not for very long though. Vanya held her hand under the desk when they had sex education and Luther asked how she'd know when her period started if it happened on a mission. Sometimes Luther was an idiot.

Luther apologised in that way that said Five and Addison told him to because he didn't know what he'd done wrong. He never did and she hoped that one day he'd work it out first. She wished the day had never come.

Diego flipped between how he thought a girl should be treated and the way she turned people into piles of flesh on the regular. He still walked in front of her like she needed his protection. Diego was a bit of an idiot when he forgot just because she hated it didn't mean she couldn't do it, she wasn't Vanya.

Addison liked to be seen as her Knight in shining armour but she knew he was repulsed like Dad was. He was good at pretending though, acting like he was untouchable like he knew what the reporters were talking about like they didn't have a second sister at home. They were all good at that though. His best part was pretending that he was without a sister at all, if only it hadn't carried over to the house as well. She still missed him afterwards.

Klaus was an idiot and now she was stuck with him. He wasn't so bad. Sometimes Klaus would join them in the library and drag her away to borrow her clothes or get her to bother Five to find lipstick or eyeliner. When Klaus picks himself up off another bathroom floor Beth wishes to go back to those times. She'd even deal with Dad watching her like she was repugnant and not raised under his roof all her life. The Dead were the Worst, Klaus was right about their incessant bitching bit he was so dramatic about it. He didn't need to do this! She'd seen so much shit (literally) that was pathetic and petty and would have been the death of anyone else frankly, Klaus was exhausting. She stayed with him all the same.

* * *

Vanya wasn't a blonde bombshell. She wasn't sexy or the Most Beautiful Woman three years running. She wasn't bubbly and funny or sharp and dangerous. She wasn't sweet and shy. She was fighting a losing battle comparing herself to a sister who had no competition and didn't bother to think of her as such. At some point, Vanya had accepted that life wasn't fucking fair and it never would be.

**Author's Note:**

> maybe one day I'll write something long and actually finish it
> 
> i have a shite n key rn so this was written mainly on my phone, @me if sth's up
> 
> nothing against boys but the 'implication' that Allison made Patrick love her is so fucked up no matter how much I love her character, the bit with her male counterpart started out as her and i switched the pronouns. everything becomes so much worse if you consider it with 0 context  
> on the other hand, i had to acknowledge all the shit she'd deal with as a girl celebrity with two adults and no real female role model or privacy


End file.
